Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 24, 2004 21:55:21 GMT
Manzarek's Whole Thing: Under Control
By Jerry Hopkins
Los Angeles-- Danny Sugerman was screaming into the green telephone. Ray Manzarek's new album was on the charts and Danny couldn't get a tour from the agency. "Baby," someone at the agency said, "there's nobody right for Ray going out in February."
Danny screeched an imaginative obscenity, hung up, and muttered, "We leave our old agency and that's what we get," then dialed his lawyers to scream at them. Following that, he called Ray's road manager and hollered some more, this time about equipment that was supposed to be in the rehearsal room, but wasn't.
Then there was silence in the Spanish-style Laurel Canyon house, broken by an incoming call. It was the guitarist in Ray's band, threatening to quit.
Ray Arrived with a cheery, "Hi, man, what's up?" Danny said it was down. Ray was unflappable, a product of the working class Midwest who now exuded incredible cool. Mr. Sophistication. He was once into transcendental meditation and when he married his Japanese-American college sweetheart his tastes became even more Eastern. His home looked like the residence of a splendid Oriental ambassador. He and Dorothy liked good film. (Ray himself was regarded as one of the UCLA film school's finest students; has a master's degree in cinematography.) At home they never listen to AM rock radio, preferring the jazz and classical stations. The wardrobes are extensive, and current.
"It'll be perfect," Ray said to Danny's gloomy report. "Perfect." And then Ray left for lunch with his wife.
Danny glared at the red and green telephones. Green for outgoing calls, red for calls coming in. The agent said he'd call. The red telephone was silent. Danny swore.
Ray Manzarek has been in the business--playing for money--since 1965, when he released two singles as Screamin' Ray Daniels while a student in the UCLA cinematography department. His real name is Raymond Daniel Manczarek. The "c" was dropped in 1966 when he and three others signed with Elektra as the Doors. That group broke up in 1973, two years after its lead singer either died or disappeared.
Since then, Ray's been soloing and when The Whole Thing Started with Rock & Roll Now It's out of Control (his second album for Mercury) hit the charts in February, it was the first time Ray'd been there since leaving the Doors.
Ray's first album had made only the tiniest ripple as it sank. It featured the work of drummer Tony Williams (ex-Miles Davis, ex-Tony Williams Lifetime), guitarist Larry Carlton (ex-Crusaders) and Elvis Presley's bassist, Jerry Scheff, but Ray was still searching for his voice, and The Golden Scarab, subtitled "A Rhythm Myth," seemed too mental to attract any emotion from the audience. Ray agreed.
"Scarab was too complex," he said. "It required more mind work than a lot of people were willing to do. You had to sit down and read the lyrics and think about them. People aren't into putting out an intellectual effort now. That's why Towering Inferno is a success. People don't want to think. That's the problem. I love to think. I don't care that times are tough. What's that got to do with your mind?"
The second album is good. Like the first, there were visiting heavies, such as Flo and Eddie and the New York poet, Patti Smith, who read a poem by the Doors original vocalist. Ray sang and played a showroom full of keyboard instruments. There were rock & roll songs, Middle Eastern rhythms, even a "Light My Fire" organ run. Not to mention (Danny swears) a tape of Ray and Dorothy making it (grunts, groans, ecstasy) behind a song called "Perfumed Garden."
Ray talked of the new album. He said it was "no less intellectual," but admitted to abandoning concept for variety. "The object is to stimulate the emotions as well as the mind."
Back in 1966, when Ray's manager was only twelve, he was forbidden by his parents to walk on the Sunset Strip. At 15, he left home and soon after that, through someone he'd known in Little League, he met the Doors and began sneaking into the band's offices to sleep at night. At 16, the Doors singer virtually adopted Danny as a younger brother. The singer was always telling Danny to do things in school that inevitably got
Danny into trouble. "Slide into class like it's second base," the singer said, "then look at the teacher and ask if you're 'safe'. Show 'em you're different and they'll respect you."
Now Danny was managing Ray Manzarek, who was in his middle 30's and old enough to be another older brother. Danny continued to stare at the red telephone.
"Our fuckin' guitarist!" he griped. "He's frustrated because he isn't on the road. Nobody is more frustrated than me, man, because I got fuckin' ten percent of that album." (Danny cowrote a number of the songs.) "But I can just get so heavy with an agent who's been in the business for 30 years, y'know, before they say, 'Hey, kid, back off.' But tomorrow I'm going to deal with him. I'm gonna go in there whether he's in a meeting or not and I'm gonna sit down and say, 'I want a tour! I want a gig this Friday night. And I want gigs every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights for the next four weeks or else you just lost yourself a client who's got a record.'"
Ray was eating a Thai lunch at a restaurant called the Home of Siam, smacking his lips and making appreciative small talk at Dorothy. The Manzareks liked exotica, although they thought it difficult to find in Los Angeles. Little Tokyo had much to offer, and so did Boyle Heights, where there is a growing Mexican, Chinese and Japanese population. Chinatown had two propaganda-laden Communist stores and a couple of superb antique stores, where the Manzareks bought some of their furniture. At the far end of the San Fernando valley lies 1948, the California of Dashiell Hammett, Roman Polanski's vision in Chinatown. Ray Manzarek's world.
He is spending $1200 a week to keep his band together, paying salaries to Snuffy Walden, a guitarist from Texas, Nigel Harrison, a bassist from England and drummer Hunt Sales, Soupy's son. Plus salaries to a German equipment manager, plus rent on the Laurel Canyon house where the band rehearsed and Danny lived. Total: $2600 a week.
Danny sat in front of the silent red telephone and reminisced about Ray's mysterious nature. "I really love him; he's great," Danny said. "You could live with Ray for a hundred years and not know him. It's because he's Polish. I have no other explanation." Then his monolog turned nostalgic-as nostalgic as 20 years of age can be. "The world's not gonna be changed by rock & roll anymore. Alice Cooper has to be bigger and better than last year, he's gotta be better than Elton John, he's gotta do it better than David Bowie. The music isn't even secondary anymore. That's why the world can't be changed through rock & roll. Because it's become a spectacle, it's become like baseball. And how's the world gonna change through baseball.
"We don't want to compete with Alice, Bowie-the bring-on-a-zebra-and-decapitate-it bit. Ray isn't like that. I swear, Ray can make you dance."
Ray and Dorothy sat in the House of Siam, placing bits of exotic food in front of their son Pablo. Ray told a story about Pablo, and why he recently gave up the house near the Whiskey A Go Go that he bought with the first big Doors money in 1968. That house, although small, had an indoor-outdoor fish pond and a small outdoor swimming pool. One day Ray heard a cry. He rushed outside and found Pablo hanging by his little hands on the edge of the pool, water up to his neck. Soon after that the Manzareks moved their Oriental antiques and objects d'art to a poolless house in the Beachwood Hills above Hollywood where, given the choice, Ray spends most of his time.
Danny was still staring at the red telephone. "I got the record company screaming at me: 'You're up shit creek unless you have a tour in a week and a half!' I got a guitarist threatening to quit unless he can play in front of people. And Ray says, 'Ehhhh, I wanna stay home with my wife and baby.' I tell ya, Ray is more unmanageable than Iggy Stooge. You know how Ray is. He's gonna make his music and he'll have his home life. And he'll prefer his home life, because he's already tasted it. He's not 22 years old like the guitarist."
Two weeks later, Ray and his band were on the road. The agency Danny was hassling lost the group, just as he'd threatened, and they returned to their previous agency to join a Grand Funk tour as supporting act. The album was still on the charts somewhere and now Ray was playing and singing for as many as 86,000 a night. The troublesome guitarists never made it, though. He was replaced before the band left Laurel Canyon, with Terry Sales, another of Soupy's sons.
It was, as Ray said, "a perfect life": The Tales of a Polish Son, About the Orient Express.
By Jerry Hopkins
Los Angeles-- Danny Sugerman was screaming into the green telephone. Ray Manzarek's new album was on the charts and Danny couldn't get a tour from the agency. "Baby," someone at the agency said, "there's nobody right for Ray going out in February."
Danny screeched an imaginative obscenity, hung up, and muttered, "We leave our old agency and that's what we get," then dialed his lawyers to scream at them. Following that, he called Ray's road manager and hollered some more, this time about equipment that was supposed to be in the rehearsal room, but wasn't.
Then there was silence in the Spanish-style Laurel Canyon house, broken by an incoming call. It was the guitarist in Ray's band, threatening to quit.
Ray Arrived with a cheery, "Hi, man, what's up?" Danny said it was down. Ray was unflappable, a product of the working class Midwest who now exuded incredible cool. Mr. Sophistication. He was once into transcendental meditation and when he married his Japanese-American college sweetheart his tastes became even more Eastern. His home looked like the residence of a splendid Oriental ambassador. He and Dorothy liked good film. (Ray himself was regarded as one of the UCLA film school's finest students; has a master's degree in cinematography.) At home they never listen to AM rock radio, preferring the jazz and classical stations. The wardrobes are extensive, and current.
"It'll be perfect," Ray said to Danny's gloomy report. "Perfect." And then Ray left for lunch with his wife.
Danny glared at the red and green telephones. Green for outgoing calls, red for calls coming in. The agent said he'd call. The red telephone was silent. Danny swore.
Ray Manzarek has been in the business--playing for money--since 1965, when he released two singles as Screamin' Ray Daniels while a student in the UCLA cinematography department. His real name is Raymond Daniel Manczarek. The "c" was dropped in 1966 when he and three others signed with Elektra as the Doors. That group broke up in 1973, two years after its lead singer either died or disappeared.
Since then, Ray's been soloing and when The Whole Thing Started with Rock & Roll Now It's out of Control (his second album for Mercury) hit the charts in February, it was the first time Ray'd been there since leaving the Doors.
Ray's first album had made only the tiniest ripple as it sank. It featured the work of drummer Tony Williams (ex-Miles Davis, ex-Tony Williams Lifetime), guitarist Larry Carlton (ex-Crusaders) and Elvis Presley's bassist, Jerry Scheff, but Ray was still searching for his voice, and The Golden Scarab, subtitled "A Rhythm Myth," seemed too mental to attract any emotion from the audience. Ray agreed.
"Scarab was too complex," he said. "It required more mind work than a lot of people were willing to do. You had to sit down and read the lyrics and think about them. People aren't into putting out an intellectual effort now. That's why Towering Inferno is a success. People don't want to think. That's the problem. I love to think. I don't care that times are tough. What's that got to do with your mind?"
The second album is good. Like the first, there were visiting heavies, such as Flo and Eddie and the New York poet, Patti Smith, who read a poem by the Doors original vocalist. Ray sang and played a showroom full of keyboard instruments. There were rock & roll songs, Middle Eastern rhythms, even a "Light My Fire" organ run. Not to mention (Danny swears) a tape of Ray and Dorothy making it (grunts, groans, ecstasy) behind a song called "Perfumed Garden."
Ray talked of the new album. He said it was "no less intellectual," but admitted to abandoning concept for variety. "The object is to stimulate the emotions as well as the mind."
Back in 1966, when Ray's manager was only twelve, he was forbidden by his parents to walk on the Sunset Strip. At 15, he left home and soon after that, through someone he'd known in Little League, he met the Doors and began sneaking into the band's offices to sleep at night. At 16, the Doors singer virtually adopted Danny as a younger brother. The singer was always telling Danny to do things in school that inevitably got
Danny into trouble. "Slide into class like it's second base," the singer said, "then look at the teacher and ask if you're 'safe'. Show 'em you're different and they'll respect you."
Now Danny was managing Ray Manzarek, who was in his middle 30's and old enough to be another older brother. Danny continued to stare at the red telephone.
"Our fuckin' guitarist!" he griped. "He's frustrated because he isn't on the road. Nobody is more frustrated than me, man, because I got fuckin' ten percent of that album." (Danny cowrote a number of the songs.) "But I can just get so heavy with an agent who's been in the business for 30 years, y'know, before they say, 'Hey, kid, back off.' But tomorrow I'm going to deal with him. I'm gonna go in there whether he's in a meeting or not and I'm gonna sit down and say, 'I want a tour! I want a gig this Friday night. And I want gigs every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights for the next four weeks or else you just lost yourself a client who's got a record.'"
Ray was eating a Thai lunch at a restaurant called the Home of Siam, smacking his lips and making appreciative small talk at Dorothy. The Manzareks liked exotica, although they thought it difficult to find in Los Angeles. Little Tokyo had much to offer, and so did Boyle Heights, where there is a growing Mexican, Chinese and Japanese population. Chinatown had two propaganda-laden Communist stores and a couple of superb antique stores, where the Manzareks bought some of their furniture. At the far end of the San Fernando valley lies 1948, the California of Dashiell Hammett, Roman Polanski's vision in Chinatown. Ray Manzarek's world.
He is spending $1200 a week to keep his band together, paying salaries to Snuffy Walden, a guitarist from Texas, Nigel Harrison, a bassist from England and drummer Hunt Sales, Soupy's son. Plus salaries to a German equipment manager, plus rent on the Laurel Canyon house where the band rehearsed and Danny lived. Total: $2600 a week.
Danny sat in front of the silent red telephone and reminisced about Ray's mysterious nature. "I really love him; he's great," Danny said. "You could live with Ray for a hundred years and not know him. It's because he's Polish. I have no other explanation." Then his monolog turned nostalgic-as nostalgic as 20 years of age can be. "The world's not gonna be changed by rock & roll anymore. Alice Cooper has to be bigger and better than last year, he's gotta be better than Elton John, he's gotta do it better than David Bowie. The music isn't even secondary anymore. That's why the world can't be changed through rock & roll. Because it's become a spectacle, it's become like baseball. And how's the world gonna change through baseball.
"We don't want to compete with Alice, Bowie-the bring-on-a-zebra-and-decapitate-it bit. Ray isn't like that. I swear, Ray can make you dance."
Ray and Dorothy sat in the House of Siam, placing bits of exotic food in front of their son Pablo. Ray told a story about Pablo, and why he recently gave up the house near the Whiskey A Go Go that he bought with the first big Doors money in 1968. That house, although small, had an indoor-outdoor fish pond and a small outdoor swimming pool. One day Ray heard a cry. He rushed outside and found Pablo hanging by his little hands on the edge of the pool, water up to his neck. Soon after that the Manzareks moved their Oriental antiques and objects d'art to a poolless house in the Beachwood Hills above Hollywood where, given the choice, Ray spends most of his time.
Danny was still staring at the red telephone. "I got the record company screaming at me: 'You're up shit creek unless you have a tour in a week and a half!' I got a guitarist threatening to quit unless he can play in front of people. And Ray says, 'Ehhhh, I wanna stay home with my wife and baby.' I tell ya, Ray is more unmanageable than Iggy Stooge. You know how Ray is. He's gonna make his music and he'll have his home life. And he'll prefer his home life, because he's already tasted it. He's not 22 years old like the guitarist."
Two weeks later, Ray and his band were on the road. The agency Danny was hassling lost the group, just as he'd threatened, and they returned to their previous agency to join a Grand Funk tour as supporting act. The album was still on the charts somewhere and now Ray was playing and singing for as many as 86,000 a night. The troublesome guitarists never made it, though. He was replaced before the band left Laurel Canyon, with Terry Sales, another of Soupy's sons.
It was, as Ray said, "a perfect life": The Tales of a Polish Son, About the Orient Express.
